502 
ON PUERPERAL FEVER IN TIIE COW. 
dairy districts, and large towns and their vicinities, where the re- 
verse of these things exist, cows at the adult period of life are ex- 
tremely liable to it. 
Although 1 undertake a consideration of the treatment with 
some reluctance, it arises not from a conviction that that treatment 
is inefficacious in itself, but because we are almost invariably called 
in to witness its failure ; for the malady, from its treacherous cha- 
racter and suddenness of attack, is frequently too far advanced, 
previous to our attendance, to admit of any remedial means being 
beneficially employed. 
In what the treatment consists depends upon circumstances 
and the period of our attendance, so that it is perfectly futile in 
one practitioner to say that he always bleeds, or in another to say 
he uniformly dispenses therewith ; for this, like other remedies, 
must be applied to the state of each individual case so far only as 
symptoms warrant. 
Believing that the disease consists, primarily and essentially, 
in congestion of the nervous centres, speedily terminating in effu- 
sion into the tissue — a tissue the integrity whereof is more than 
any other immediately essential to life, and yet one more than any 
other, from the nature of its texture, offering every facility to injury 
likely to result from this kind of disease — it behoves us instantly 
and energetically to apply our remedies. 
And what remedies are there possessing greater potency than 
blood-letting and purgatives towards an early stage, before effusion 
has taken place, effecting the indications desired, namely, unload- 
ing the vascular system, preventing morbid deposit, and the change 
of structure incident thereon I 
If, then, we see our patient early, before she falls, or even 
when recently down, with coma and other cerebral, the most obvi- 
ous symptoms, the true spinal functions little impaired, in other 
words cerebral congestion alone existing, our first care should be to 
bleed instantly. 
In undertaking this operation, my wish is, by removing the 
source of irritation, diminishing arterial action, and thereby pre- 
venting their ultimate effects if continued, to make a powerful im- 
pression upon the system. In blood-letting, therefore, the abstrac- 
tion should be rapid, and the quantity withdrawn sufficient to effect 
these intentions. I would, therefore, continue the evacuation in a 
full stream until the warnings, which in time supervene, told me 
to desist. In few or no other conditions of the system is there a 
greater tolerance of blood-letting; yet, let but a few more hours 
elapse, and directly the reverse occurs. Having accomplished this, 
our next care is to administer purgatives, from a knowledge that 
they fulfil partly the same indications as blood-letting in weaken- 
